I’m sitting in my sister’s house in Kansas City on a Friday night, listening to the train in the distance (last night I heard a great horned owl hooting in the backyard). In a way, I’m enjoying a respite from my travels: visiting family and friends, working, and hanging out without feeling the need to do much. In another sense, though, I’m still on 12 Cities, 1 Year, staying in yet another place where I don’t live. In a few days I’ll be back in Denver, and then we’ll fly back to the West Coast and start the slow trek down toward San Diego.

Today I had lunch with a high school friend whom I haven’t seen in 30 years. She’s fighting the good fight as a civil rights attorney for the Department of Education. I’m impressed by what she’s accomplished, but I’m also glad I’m not supervising 10 people. I’m glad I work for myself. As I told her, I never really liked having a job.

One of the great gifts this year keeps giving me is introspection. With each new city, each new exploration, I get to find out more about myself and what I really want. Some days it seems I’m still living the old life, still exploring and blogging about it, still copyediting. Other days, life seems completely different than it did six months ago.

On Friday my brother and I moved my father into the apartment where he’ll be staying for two weeks. If he likes the place, he may move there permanently. I had a long day of doing family stuff, but my sister worked Friday from 7:30 am to 6 or so and then helped Dad with various things. I left his apartment at 9 pm, and she didn’t get home until about midnight.

On Saturday, I took a bit of a break and drove around eastern Kansas City looking for the swimming hole my father and his friends swam in when they were kids. He said it was in the Blue River near 53rd and Hardesty and had a large tree growing out of it.

View Hardesty Ave & E 53rd St in a larger map
In the 1930s, when my father was riding his bike from his house on 39th and Benton to the swimming hole, the area south of 27th was called the South Side. (You can still see “South Side” signs in Kansas City; there’s one on Wornall near 75th.) Benton lies between Prospect and Cleveland; after it runs through Brush Creek Park, it ends at Swope Parkway.

I got lost a few times on the east side of Kansas City. I went too far north on Emanuel Cleaver Boulevard and found a remnant of Hardesty, but not the one I wanted. Google Maps directed me back south to Elmwood and the Blue Parkway and another remnant of Hardesty, where I drove to the end of 53rd Street and could see the Blue River sparkling below. There seemed to be no easy way to get down to it, though, and I wasn’t dressed for trekking through the brush. Also, I felt awkward poking around at the end of this narrow street.

I tried driving to the end of 51st Street but was stopped by two gates and what looked like a gravel pit below.

By then I was pretty frustrated, but Google gave me an idea: I could cross the Blue River and try to find Brighton Avenue (also called Denver Avenue), which ran north-south on its west side. When I crossed the river on Blue Parkway, I saw a fenced-off gravel road to the left just past the river, right where Brighton should be, but the first street I could actually drive up was Lawn. That road was so steep I had to force myself to keep going, and then I found myself in another maze of streets. I could have driven south and tried to access Brighton from 59th, but it was 5 pm, and I wanted to get back south.

I didn’t tell Dad about my trek. Instead, I decided I’d write a letter to the Kansas City Star and ask if any readers remembered the swimming hole.

This morning I walked the Santa Fe Trace trail behind my sister’s house, armed with one of my father’s canes. I took it not to lean on but to use as a weapon against any cobwebs that might ensnare me.

I must have torn down 5 cobwebs on a trail about two blocks in length through a remnant forest. Maybe more. I scared away a fawn, and I puzzled over the call of a bird that might have been a woodpecker, but what I remember was the threat of cobwebs: wielding the cane horizontally and vertically across the path to clear the webs and yet still lurching to a stop when a spider in its intricate web entered my peripheral vision.

And I thought, I’m glad there is no one else on this path, watching me wave this cane around as if it were an overgrown dowsing rod. I have become such a chicken.

Truth be told, I’m less afraid of spiders than I used to be. Occasionally I even spare the ones in my house, in my space; the small ones. Those outside, in their space, I let alone.

But that doesn’t mean I want to walk into their webs.

There is more life east of the 100th meridian. More trees, the street canopy of my childhood; more bugs; definitely more humidity. It’s been about 18 years since I spent a summer in the Midwest.

And I thought, My life in Colorado is so sanitized.

Perhaps this is the visit of revelations, or at least the visit of shrugging at uncomfortable truths.

That my father can’t take care of himself anymore and doesn’t want to admit it. And I do so wish to indulge him because I’m used to having him be stronger.

That being the baby of my family has made my life easier. Living in another state, I don’t have to deal with my father’s decline on a daily or weekly basis. I can swoop in, feel useful, and go home. Must be nice, eh?

So why does it cause me so much anxiety?

Before I left Hays Wednesday morning, I stopped by the Soda Shoppe for another chocolate coke. I just love watching them fill Styrofoam with cola syrup, chocolate syrup, and soda water. And then I drove past western Kansas’s anti-choice signs (others include “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart”; “Adoption, Not Abortion”) and past the hay bales near the Rexford exit.

I got off I-70 at Oakley to visit the Prairie Dog Town and Monument Rocks. Alas, the prairie dogs had been put away for the winter (actually, on Labor Day). I didn’t mind too much, since PDT was so close to the exit and on my way south. Monument Rocks was at least a 40-minute drive south and east of Oakley; I wish I’d devised a route that didn’t require me to backtrack. At this helpful sign (note the “improved” state of Highway 83 eastbound), I saw a whitetail buck and doe.

The rocks rise straight out of the plain, which reminded me of Colorado with its yucca and other scrub. There isn’t any gradual buildup of ever-larger rocks; all of a sudden, you’re there. It was an eerie place, and the distant companionship of two guys from Texas didn’t change that.

The road went between two rock formations. This is a picture of the rocks on the right side of the road, where I started, taken from the rocks on the left side.

The two guys from Texas were on the left-hand formation. (See that black speck on the left side of the picture below? There they are, standing on top.)

The rocks were perfect for swallows’ nests.

Sometimes the details caught my eye.

Sometimes I preferred a longer view.

Here’s a close-up of the right-hand formation from the picture above, which looks like a sphinx to me.

The rock formations were interesting, but I didn’t want to linger. So I drove my 40 minutes back to I-70, seeing more hay bales on the way.

Among other places, I stopped in Burlington, Colorado, on the way home. I was directed to a coffee shop along their downtown strip called the Main Cup.

And then I drove the rest of the way home in the dark and slept in my own bed for the first time in a month.

***

Thanks for my sister and friend for putting me up. And thanks to all of you for reading these posts.

I left Kansas City the morning of November 8, driving down Antioch to Shawnee Mission Parkway, stopping briefly by the old mission buildings that used to house Shawnee Indian girls and boys (the mission predates the Indian boarding school system of the late 1800s and early 1900s that was designed to strip American Indians of their culture and Christianize them). I would have toured the buildings, but they aren’t open on Sundays and Mondays.

Then I drove to Loose Park, just south of the Plaza on Wornall, and stopped by the Rose Garden, where roses kept blooming, and would, I suppose, until a hard frost stopped them. The wind, as usual, made close-ups a challenge, but I found some details that I liked.

And even signs of the changing seasons.

Loose Park’s other main attraction is its pond with swans, but I didn’t visit that today. I drove down to the Plaza, got another rosemary caramel latte at LatteLand, and meandered over to Highway 71, which took me to I-70.

By the time I reached Kansas exit 299 (featuring Tim’s Party cabin), I had seen 33 hawks, including some red-tails. The others I couldn’t identify at 70 miles per hour. I drove on to exit 275, otherwise known as Abilene, my destination for that day.

***

There’s so much more. I’ve lived away from Kansas City and my family for so long (3 decades, except for 1 year in the late 1980s) that I always have this nagging thought upon departure: If I could just go back and do one more thing, everything will be all right.

It’s not true, of course.

It was great to get reacquainted with the city where I grew up, see how much it has changed and grown. The changes out south are mostly sprawl, which I dislike, but the changes up north intrigue me.

Next time I come back, I’ll know where to continue my exploration. But now, here are a few of the places I missed: Extra Virgin and Nara restaurants (Crossroads), Trezo Vino (Leawood), Le Fou Frog (River Market), Plaza III (that old standby), Volker Park (near the Plaza and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art), the Liberty Memorial (Crown Center), the Arabia Museum (River Market), and the jazz and Negro League museums (east of Troost on 18th). Not to mention the many historical museums that dot the city.

And to my shame, I must confess I ate BBQ only at Jack Stack’s. No Arthur Bryant’s this time for me.

Note: Hathaway Shoe has closed its Waldo Store. Its other location, in Leawood, Kansas, is J. Hathaway Shoe Boutique.  I haven’t been there, but many of the brands are the same.)

I had planned to inform you that Bob Jones Shoes was the most dangerous place in the universe, but now I’ve decided it’s Hathaway Shoe.

Located at 1914 Grand Avenue of the Americas, north of Crown Center,has been around quite a while because I remember shopping there in 1986, when I worked at the UMKC Dental School. Bob (or Jones?) sells Dansko and Sanita and Italian-made shoes with leather soles, as well as Maruca purses, which are made in Boulder. Here’s a sample of the wares (in which I unfortunately decided to focus on the center instead of on the shoes. Sorry).

But it was at Hathaway, on Wornall a block north of 75th,  that I laid down the money. Remember the days when clerks at shoe stores measured your feet and put them on you? And even used a shoehorn? I can. And on Wednesday I had that experience again, with a clerk named Gregory.

He must have looked through every section of the back room, and produced one beautiful shoe after another. If I had bought every pair of shoes that fit well, I would have had to win the lottery to pay for them.

I have never tried on so many pairs of shoes in my life: at least 20. Finally I told him I was overloading on shoes, and even then he brought out another pair. I found a pair of multicolored boots to go with my dark brown wool pants, and then I bought a pair of green suede shoes just because I’d never seen anything quite like them before.

All this happened at their “comfortable shoes” store, the one that sells shoes you can wear 3 to 5 hours, according to the British guy who called me “lovey.” Hathaway is opening a “fashion shoes” store, featuring shoes you can wear 2 hours or less. I’m not sure what people who want to wear the shoes longer are supposed to do.

Monday afternoon I headed north to Brookside again, taking Highway 71 to 63rd Street and passing Research Hospital, where one of my relatives works, and the Landing shopping center, which I remember from my childhood. Mom and Dad would take us to Nu-Way, a burger joint where all I remember ordering is a chocolate coke, and it was near the Landing. Nu-Way isn’t there anymore, which makes me a little sad, but there may be some locations in Wichita.

I drove west on 63rd to Oak, where I parked and checked out the strip mall. Almost every business was closed on Mondays: Paris Flee Market, Bella Bridesmaid, the Clock Shop, Ward and Ward Custom Picture Framing, Brookside Antiques, and J’Adore (European antiques and interiors). Of all those, the framing store was open and, happily, the Oak Street Coffee Shop.

It was comfy and sunny but almost empty. The barista, who said she was new, made me a hot chocolate with Hershey’s syrup and then said I should tell her if I wanted more chocolate. Since it tasted like hot, weak chocolate milk, I did. (Hot chocolate varies so much in quality from one coffeehouse to another that I’m thinking of going back to coffee.) After I ensconced myself with Marie Claire in a corner to read all about Hilary Swank, a woman came in to buy the rest of their rich, dark, chocolate cake.

I stayed until the shop closed at 5, learning that Swank does not wear evening gowns every day (Newsflash!) and that the International Bodyguard Association has a women’s division that is growing apace. Both Obama and Qaddafi have female bodyguards, though Qaddafi’s look a lot tougher. Apparently female bodyguards have the advantage of being able to blend in better than a 6-foot guy in a black suit. This memorable quote—“You’re there to prevent a situation from happening, not to start a kung fu fight”—brought home to me why I wouldn’t be a good bodyguard. It’s the fighting that I want to learn.

Fortified with Hershey’s, I drove a couple of blocks over to Shop Girls, in the same strip near Brookside and 63rd with 5B Candles and Foo’s Fabulous Frozen Custard and Sharp’s 63rd Street Grill. The clothes in the window enticed me, but I hesitated, anticipating a bunch of long-sleeved T-shirts designed to cover the shoulder blades of 15-year-old girls.

Several tops actually fit, though I went home with only these two. On the way out, I was still stopping to look at jackets and scarves and purses. Shop Girls is a great place.

Since Monday is the day to indulge ourselves, as everyone knows, the most logical thing to follow a successful shopping trip is dinner. The list of fatty fried entrees at Sharp’s repelled me, but I had better luck across 63rd, where I found Carmen’s, Jalapenos, Domo sushi (shades of Denver), and the Blue Grotto. Carmen’s appeared to be a haven for illegal activity, and I wasn’t in the mood for sushi or Mexican. Blue Grotto, a locally owned restaurant, drew me in with its large, open front window and attractive bar. It was not too full when I got there at 6, making me feel less awkward as a singleton diner.

I sat at the bar in front of the window and enjoyed the slight breeze. When I ordered the Alexander Valley Chardonnay and lobster ravioli with brandy and lobster butter cream, the bartender brought me a white napkin, folded into a triangle, to use as a placemat. “Everyone gets one,” she said, assuring me that she didn’t think I was a slob. The wine glowed yellow-gray and tasted of citrus followed by something softer and smoother, perhaps the vanilla and caramel mentioned on the menu. I liked the irregular shape of the ravioli and the delicate flavor of lobster. The ravioli were firm, but I would have appreciated more, perhaps even crunchiness.

What impressed me most about Blue Grotto was the 18-inch-long antipasti platter ordered by my neighbors, featuring a hunk of cheese in the middle with a rosemary croccantini wedged inside, as well as salumi and oven-roasted vegetables.

It was a nice light meal, but after the glass of Punto Final Malbec, I didn’t want to drive home right away, so I headed over to the Roasterie for the second time this week. On my first trip with my sister, I ordered a beautiful latte and a red velvet cupcake. This time, it was an Americano and a chocolate mini-cupcake.

The owner, who first realized his love for coffee in the 1970s when he picked his first bean in Costa Rica, began roasting coffee in his Brookside basement in 1993, thereby getting to know his neighbors. Now he’s got a much larger space in which to indulge his coffee-jones, and people seem to like it.

I know I’ll be back, because I’m dying to sit on the orange-striped banquette that lines the back wall.